Frappe Bliss

Restaurant: Frappe Bliss
Cuisine: Desserts/Ice Cream/Asian
Last visited: September 4, 09
Location: Richmond, BC (Richmond Central)
Address : 4151 Hazelbridge Way (Inside Aberdeen Centre food court)
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 6
Service: n/a (food court)
Ambiance: n/a
Overall: n/a
Additional comments:

• Started in Taiwan
• Healthy dessert
• Low fat dessert
• Similar to “shaved ice” but better
• Variety of fresh fruit/canned fruit/Asian toppings
• Sweet and savoury waffles/crepes available
• 10% off with their Facebook fan page coupon
• Also on the menu – sweet and savoury crepes

**Recommendation: Matcha Delight, Thai Sensation – I like to get one that comes with a scoop of ice cream on top because the combo of shaved ice milk and ice cream is really good! I also like Chocolate Earthquake with Peanut or Banana ice milk or A Garden in Eden with mango ice milk.

This is one of my favourite dessert places. I crave this place every time I’m in Aberdeen Mall. I’ll actually go to the mall just for this – well, there’s not much there anyway except for the food court. Anyways my point is simply that this is really really good. It’s such a unique dessert! It’s a similar concept to the popular shaved ice, but it tastes so much better!

First off, it’s not shaved ice, instead they use ice milk. They take a block of frozen and flavoured ice milk and they shave it with this ice machine. You get this mound of shaved ice milk in a big bowl and you top it with things such as fresh fruit, red beans, mochi, condensed milk, taro, grass jelly, Oreos etc. The ice milk itself is really light and refreshing and it makes for a good dessert or anytime snack. I could certainly have it anytime. It’s still sweet, but not as sweet ice cream, but it tastes like ice cream! It tastes just like shavings of ice cream – light, soft and feathery – I don’t know how they do it, but it doesn’t melt either.

I really love this place and you can eat a whole bowl full of ice milk and you feel like you ate nothing because it’s so airy light, yet it’s still satisfying to your stomach and sweet tooth. I would bring people here just to try this. It’s just waiting to be franchised, which I think will happen at anytime once people start to catch on. You can order one of their Frappe Bliss creations and chose your own choice of ice milk or customize your own completely.

On the table:

**Matcha Delight – 6/6

• Matcha ice cream, mochi and red beans. Then they drizzle condensed milk over the whole thing $5
• This one is one of my favourites and I don’t even like red bean. You can tell them to ease up on it, or not to put it on if you want.
• It’s not particularly bad red bean so I don’t mind a little. It gives it some texture and a hint of sweetness.
• I love the mochi they use in this. I think they’re Taiwanese style mochis – not really Japanese ones. They’re better than the mochi they use at frozen yogurt places.
• The ones at Frappe Bliss are perfectly round ones, soft and chewy ones, not dry ones. They’re obviously bought and not homemade, but they’re still good.
• They’re great for this dessert because they slightly freeze, but still remain chewy and not hard. Almost like eating pearls in a bubble tea.
• I love the texture of the ice cream and shaved ice too, the combination of eating them together is divine!
• I like to order this one with their regular ice milk. Don’t want too many flavours going on. It’s about $5 and I think it’s totally worth it!

**Thai Sensation – 5/6

• Condensed milk, mango, black glutinous rice $4.26
• I ordered this one with the mango flavoured ice milk – that seemed like an obvious choice.
• I like this one it’s different and they use fresh mangoes.
• I would like it with some coconut milk too to make it even more Thai, but they don’t offer any.

**Chocolate Earthquake – 5/6

• Oreo, chocolate sauce $3.80
• 6/6 if you order this with banana or peanut ice milk. YUM!
• It’s topped with chocolate sauce, Oreo cookie crumbs, peanut crumbs, and brownie bits (more like crumbs).
• This one is quite crumbly, the Oreo cookies are the only thing that you really need to bite.
• It’s like eating a banana split if you get it with banana ice milk.
• The peanut ice milk is amazing. I think it’s the best one hands down for me. It’s made with real peanut butter, finely ground peanuts and fresh milk. It has a strong, smooth, and sweet peanut taste – really flavourful, you can taste the quality of peanut butter they use.
• The whole thing tastes like a really wicked Reese’s Pieces – but better.
• This isn’t as big as the other ones and has no ice cream or gourmet toppings so it’s only $3.80.

Strawberry Romance – 3/6

• Strawberry, condensed milk and strawberry ice cream $4.52
• Again I’m not a big fan of strawberry flavoured dessert like this, so it was just ok for me.
• This isn’t an adventurous one either, more a bit predictable.
• Strawberry ice milk, with strawberries on top, and strawberry syrup and condensed milk. No surprise here, tastes like what it sounds.

**A Dream in Eden – 5/6

• Strawberry, kiwi, mango and mango ice cream $5.95
• This one is another regular one – not really exotic in any of the toppings, but it’s still excellent.
• It’s more catered to Western tastes and it’s just a combination of fresh fruit on top of shaved ice milk.
• The bonus is the scoop of mango ice cream on top and it’s all drizzled with condensed milk (upon request).
• The strawberry and kiwi taste a little frozen and they’re a bit stingy on the fruit.

Formosa Treasures – 1.5/6

• Fresh taro, black glutinous rice, red beans & mochi. I think they drizzle condensed milk on it too. $5
• We ordered this one with the regular ice milk frappe.
• I’m biased because I’m not a fan of Asian dessert toppings like this.
• It was okay, but that’s because I’m not a fan of red bean or fresh taro that’s sweet.
• I like powdered taro bubble teas and savoury taro foods, but I’m not a fan of real taro bubble teas.
• The toppings were just too starchy and quite sweet. I think the combo of red bean and taro was just too sweet in general.
• The black glutinous rice was okay, kind of chewy and sweet.
• Even though everything was real, it tasted a bit fake and pasty tasting and I probably wouldn’t get this one again.

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